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Japan’s AirIntern helps startups improve their branding, hire new staff

AirIntern

Junya Mori 2013.11.19

See the original story in Japanese. Startups are typically shorthanded when it comes to man-power. But if your brand is not very popular yet, and you may have a tough time hiring new talent. Tokyo-based startup Humandyne launched a new service today which might be a good answer for startups struggling with this the issue. The service is called AirIntern, but it’s not actually focused on getting interns. Rather it introduces your company by showcasing company profiles, the working environment, voices from your employees, and job descriptions. In comparison with conventional recruiting sites, AirIntern contains rich content like pictures from offices and video interviews with employees (In this way, it seems more like US-based The Muse). You can see an example below, featuring an interview with Kazuo Ikari, the CEO of Whyteboard, a startup that operates a flea market app Listor. These video clips are created around positive feedback from people like executives, hiring personnel, and public relations staff at a company. The startup plans to stand out from competitors by using rich media content to clearly describe a company’s culture. To make shooting video interviews efficient, the company plans to enlist available cameramen and writers using a cloud-based system….

See the original story in Japanese.

Startups are typically shorthanded when it comes to man-power. But if your brand is not very popular yet, and you may have a tough time hiring new talent. Tokyo-based startup Humandyne launched a new service today which might be a good answer for startups struggling with this the issue.

The service is called AirIntern, but it’s not actually focused on getting interns. Rather it introduces your company by showcasing company profiles, the working environment, voices from your employees, and job descriptions. In comparison with conventional recruiting sites, AirIntern contains rich content like pictures from offices and video interviews with employees (In this way, it seems more like US-based The Muse). You can see an example below, featuring an interview with Kazuo Ikari, the CEO of Whyteboard, a startup that operates a flea market app Listor.

These video clips are created around positive feedback from people like executives, hiring personnel, and public relations staff at a company. The startup plans to stand out from competitors by using rich media content to clearly describe a company’s culture.

To make shooting video interviews efficient, the company plans to enlist available cameramen and writers using a cloud-based system. This is similar to AirBnB which uses available cameramen to shoot accommodation spaces for its website.

Employer Branding

crowdworks — Crowdworks’ hiring page on AirIntern

AirIntern is intended to help companies improve their ’employer branding’ efforts. Employer branding is seen as a key part of a corporate branding, telling potential employers the attractions of your company. Like many established companies, startups can also benefit from such efforts to hire strong talent.

The website focuses on how much user traffic it can drive to your hiring application form. The company will charge you on a monthly basis, for content production and advertising, depending on how many positions you are hiring for. You can add available job descriptions to the website at any time. In many ways, the service is an extension of your hiring page rather than a recruiting site.

The company is also planning to add a user profile feature soon. This will allow users to keep updated on available positions from companies they like. The aim here is to create a pool of job seekers.

Job seekers can stop looking when they are hired, but the website encourages them to keep looking for opportunities even when they are satisfied with their current position. This is sort of similar to LinkedIn.

Humandyne’s CEO Taichi Ebitani says:

We want to give people more employment options. If you are interested in joining emerging businesses or startups, I think you should. By providing more options, we hope that working at startups could be considered mainstream rather than just an escape from working at an established company.

AirIntern aspires to enlist over 100 companies to the platform by next March.

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Schoo: Japanese e-learning startup strives for excellence in content (Part 2 of 2)

Schoo

Junya Mori 2013.11.15

We recently featured Japanese startup Schoo, and its effort to remake online learning through its web lectures platform. Today we bring you the second part of that discussion, this time with more focus on the efforts of the startup’s editorial team. One of the goals of Japanese startups Schoo is that its users can realize the platforms potential for learning. To that end, the company intends to build interaction between users and lecturers in real-time streaming. Takayuki Nakanishi, the director of the content management department, explained: The abstract of the content is mostly clarified when we set the framework. Then we design with the lecture how to implement interaction with users. Lectures on Schoo are not just one-way talks by lecturers. They implement some interaction, sort of like a quiz. The UI is also designed to enhance interaction and communication among users. They can not only post their comments and questions, but other interaction features such as an “I got it!” button to show that users understand a given point. Nakanishi adds: Without interaction features, users will not come back to the site, and if that happens we cannot accomplish our vision. So we place great importance on user participation….

We recently featured Japanese startup Schoo, and its effort to remake online learning through its web lectures platform. Today we bring you the second part of that discussion, this time with more focus on the efforts of the startup’s editorial team.

One of the goals of Japanese startups Schoo is that its users can realize the platforms potential for learning. To that end, the company intends to build interaction between users and lecturers in real-time streaming. Takayuki Nakanishi, the director of the content management department, explained:

The abstract of the content is mostly clarified when we set the framework. Then we design with the lecture how to implement interaction with users.

Lectures on Schoo are not just one-way talks by lecturers. They implement some interaction, sort of like a quiz.

The UI is also designed to enhance interaction and communication among users. They can not only post their comments and questions, but other interaction features such as an “I got it!” button to show that users understand a given point. Nakanishi adds:

Without interaction features, users will not come back to the site, and if that happens we cannot accomplish our vision. So we place great importance on user participation.

Satoshi Maruyama at Venture United, a previous lecturer on Schoo, describes the learning experience as a sort of ‘matsuri’, or a Japanese festival where participants share the joy of the experience. He also noted that the broadcasting team at Schoo is really pushing for operational excellence. The members I interviewed this time aren’t involved in this process, but the overall satisfaction level among lectures is quite high, they said. Nakanishi adds:

The broadcasting team improves the quality of broadcast by finding problems and making tweaks when needed. Lecturers are very satisfied overall with the quality of the broadcasts. We regard the process as a part of content as well.

Nakanishi and content director Takuya Koroku both have editorial backgrounds. This experience naturally helps them with content creation. But on the other hand, when adding interaction to the courses, other expertise such as web design are advantageous. I asked what kind of skills they are looking for in the prospective members. Koroku explains:

We’d like to build a team with different kinds of knowledge, and then share that knowledge across the team. Someone who has experience making TV programs, social games, or creative ads would be interesting to work with. We’d like to utilize different kinds of skill and make unique content as a result.

Kokuro says he joined Schoo because the whole team, team including designers and engineers, care about content creation.

The company’s representative director, Kenshiro Mori, underscored their vision in closing:

We’d really like to set the standard for online learning by developing interesting content focused around users’ experience.

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Telepathy CEO discusses the future of wearable technology at TechCrunch Tokyo

Rick Martin 2013.11.12

At the first session of TechCrunch Tokyo, Telepathy’s CEO Takahito Iguchi took to the stage along with Kevin Landis, from chief investment manager from Firsthand Capital Management. Our readers will recall that FCM (NASDAQ:SVVC) invested $5 million in Telepathy back in August. Moderator Ken Nishimura got right to the point, asking about Google Glass, the product to which Telepathy’s glasses are often compared. Iguchi explained: Google Glass is not in the Japanese market yet, so it’s hard to compare. But our device is focused on communication. For humans, communication is a vast activity. And smartphones are a big part of that. […] Similar to Google glass, power consumption is key. In order to have full time communications up, that’s a big area of our development [1]. Iguchi disclaimed that his PR team has put some limitations on how much he can say about his product, but with regards to its user interface he says that he wants to minimize it as much as possible. “It’s a big paradigm shift that we have here,” he added. It should be forgotten and not so visible, he noted. Nishimura followed up by asking if this would involved the use of gestures, and Iguchi…

At the first session of TechCrunch Tokyo, Telepathy’s CEO Takahito Iguchi took to the stage along with Kevin Landis, from chief investment manager from Firsthand Capital Management. Our readers will recall that FCM (NASDAQ:SVVC) invested $5 million in Telepathy back in August.

Moderator Ken Nishimura got right to the point, asking about Google Glass, the product to which Telepathy’s glasses are often compared. Iguchi explained:

Google Glass is not in the Japanese market yet, so it’s hard to compare. But our device is focused on communication. For humans, communication is a vast activity. And smartphones are a big part of that. […] Similar to Google glass, power consumption is key. In order to have full time communications up, that’s a big area of our development [1].

Iguchi disclaimed that his PR team has put some limitations on how much he can say about his product, but with regards to its user interface he says that he wants to minimize it as much as possible. “It’s a big paradigm shift that we have here,” he added.

It should be forgotten and not so visible, he noted. Nishimura followed up by asking if this would involved the use of gestures, and Iguchi froze for a moment in what might be a telling ‘non-response’ response.

Kevin further emphasized this point be drawing a comparison to other wearable technologies already on the market:

We think Fitbit and Jawbone will do quite well, and will maybe will have successful IPOs. They have big markets they’re going after, but they have just one use case: people’s desire to monitor and improve their fitness. […] But that’s just one use case. With smartphones, the products sits between users when you talk to another person. But telepathy takes the product out from between people. If it is done just right, it will feel like the product disappears. and to me that’s true elegance.

takehito-iguchi-kevin-landis — Takehito Iguchi right, Kevin Landis left

One of the most interesting moments of the talk came when Iguchi was asked whether or not he could really bring this product to market, in a way that makes it cheaper than Google Glass. He couldn’t say anything about the price or exact release date, but he did speak a little bit to the challenge of creating such a device, as well as why they are taking on that challenge:

This is not easy, but we are doing it because it’s not easy. That may sound a little strange, but if it is something that anyone can do then it is not worthwhile or challenging – it’s not innovation. We are happy to try it.

Iguchi also talked a little bit about how his team is spread across both Silicon Valley and Tokyo. Members in Silicon Valley are strong in software, user interface and core application development. And his team in Tokyo is focused on the core hardware development.

He added that when his product does come to market, it will likely be in the US market to start with.

The team still obviously has a lot of work to, perhaps symbolically illustrated by the fact that he was wearing his glasses hung around his neck, rather than on his head.

Note that Iguchi’s quotes are taken from a live translation on-site. He spoke in Japanese for this talk. ↩

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Check out Japanese news app Bizzlio and 8 other startups from Movida Demo Day

Movida Japan

Masaru Ikeda 2013.11.12

Tokyo-based startup incubator Movida Japan held a Demo Day event on Friday, showcasing more than two dozens startups from the fourth batch of its incubation program. We’d like to tell you about a few that we liked, so here’s a quick rundown. Bizzlio Bizzlio is a mobile news curation app that allows users to learn more about a news story by following it. If there is any update to that story, you’ll be updated too. In this space we’ve seen many competitors, including Gunosy, SmartNews, and Vingow. Shiroyagi Corporation, the startup behind the app, wants to differentiate from others by using a unique algorithm and recommendation engine rather than creating just an RSS aggregation tool. The company’s co-founders have unique backgrounds. Their chief scientist Akira Shibata previously worked at New York University, and chief strategist Yoshi Watanabe previously worked at Panasonic. The pair met at Boston Consulting Group and decided to launch their own company. Their app is not yet available but will be live soon. Flier Flier is an abstract app especially designed for busy people. It allows users to finish reading a book in as little as ten minutes, something that usually takes most people several hours. It…

Tokyo-based startup incubator Movida Japan held a Demo Day event on Friday, showcasing more than two dozens startups from the fourth batch of its incubation program. We’d like to tell you about a few that we liked, so here’s a quick rundown.

Bizzlio

Bizzlio is a mobile news curation app that allows users to learn more about a news story by following it. If there is any update to that story, you’ll be updated too. In this space we’ve seen many competitors, including Gunosy, SmartNews, and Vingow. Shiroyagi Corporation, the startup behind the app, wants to differentiate from others by using a unique algorithm and recommendation engine rather than creating just an RSS aggregation tool.

The company’s co-founders have unique backgrounds. Their chief scientist Akira Shibata previously worked at New York University, and chief strategist Yoshi Watanabe previously worked at Panasonic. The pair met at Boston Consulting Group and decided to launch their own company. Their app is not yet available but will be live soon.

Flier

Flier is an abstract app especially designed for busy people. It allows users to finish reading a book in as little as ten minutes, something that usually takes most people several hours. It gives you two ways to choose books to read: trending books, and the books recommended by high-profile people. Abstracts for books are created by the company’s writers.

The company has partnered with 17 Japanese publishers, with abstracts from 20 books distributed to users every month via desktop, tablets, and smartphones. When you read an abstract, you can easily buy the original book at Amazon via a (referral) link from the service. According to the company’s CTO Yasushi Ohga, Flier is currently being provided for corporate users, where their employees can save time when a company requests that they read a certain book. The service was developed with an inspiration from getAbstract which has 40,000 corporate accounts and 10 million users.

ShareWis

ShareWis is a learning site that provides a number of online learning courses, motivating users to learn new things by visualizing their learning process, thus creating a feeling of the accomplishment. The service was launched in Osaka in December of 2012, and the website has seen over 300,000 visitors and more than 300,000 registered users.

In partnership with Skype-based English conversation learning service Rarejob, it is now testing a model of driving traffic to the service using the latter’s educational materials. The service is currently available on desktop and iOS, with an Android app to be released very soon.

UI Scope

UI Scope allows software and hardware developers to crowdsource product testing tasks. A registered tester (called a ‘panel’ in the service) receives a camera from the startup so that it can record the testing process. When a developer (called ‘a client’) chooses someone from all registered testers and asks them to test the product, that person will take about 20 minutes to test it and report back with a video of the testing process.

The developer pays 3,000 yen (about $30) for this testing, and the tester receives 500 yen. The test results are reported online in the form of video, screenshots, and behavioral reports in text. The company was launched back in August of 2012, had acquired 600 mobile developers as their users including the following notable companies.

Hima Switch

Hima Switch is a mobile app that will connect you with someone when you have free time. The app’s developer wants to give people an alternative option to find friends who are available to hang out. Since the launch of its beta version one month ago, it has seen 10,000 downloads, with the goal of acquiring 1.5 million users by the end of next year.

Beatrobo

Beatrobo is a music-focused startup that lets users build music playlists, primarily from YouTube music content. The company recently unveiled a mobile accessory called PlugAir, which has a unique ID and functions as sharable playlist. Users simply insert the device in the earphone jack of their smartphones in order to access the playlist.

The company plans to partner with music artists and the entertainment industry, and is already in talks with Universal Music Japan and American rock group Linkin Park. The startup launched its social music platform back in October of 2010, and fundraised about $600,000 from CyberAgent Ventures, Klab Ventures, and Movida Japan back in April of 2012.

Ciatr

Ciatr (a sort of Japanese pronunciation of ‘theater’) is a movie-focused buzz portal. The service was launched back in July, conducting an online promotional campaign in partnership with the Festival Cinema Brazil 2013. Users of the platform can leave comments on movies introduced at the event.

According to Viviane, the startup behind the service, they were originally targeting consumers in their 30s and 40s, but its main userbase turned out to be females aged 18 to 20 years. The service has 120,000 visitors in total, 140,000 buzz posts, and 8,000 registered users, and are aiming at reaching 1 million users by next July.

Aorb

Aorb is a mobile app that allows users to present two pictures and ask others to choose the best one. For example, when you can’t decided between two outfits, you can take pictures and upload them using the app. Subsequently, you will be able to see a list of responses from other users. The app will be available for iOS on November 28th.

MiCHi

With the idea of selling Japan-made items to overseas markets, Michi tests a variety of products and then post articles on its Facebook wall. In this way, they can find out what ones get the best responses from their global audience, thus gaining insights about user tastes, especially about popular nail art, which is its speciality.

Many nail artists are working in the Japanese market, but after rapid growth they’re struggling to acquire more customers and revenue in the saturated domestic market. So now they are now looking for opportunities overseas. Michi sells artificial nails designed by Japanese nail artists to overseas customers online. And since its launch back in August, the service has seen almost 200% user growth every month. CEO Shun Nakazaki says he expects to make the business sort of like a Uniqlo of the artificial nail industry.

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Tadaku: Japan’s latest travel startup comes with a tasty twist

Rick Martin 2013.11.12

A little while ago we told you about Japan-based startup Kitchhike, which matches travelers with local hosts [1] who prepare home cooked meals for them. It’s an intriguing and rare service, so I was pretty surprised when I heard about Tadaku, which is also based in Tokyo, also matching travelers with local hosts/cooks. I asked Tadaku co-founders Tao Romera Martinez and Trent McBride about how their service might be different than Kitchhike [2]. They explained that the biggest difference is that Tadaku is actually about cooking local food together, rather than just eating at someone’s home as if it were a restaurant. Trent adds: We believe the ‘cooking together’ aspect is a vital part, for a few reasons: It’s a much better way to learn about the local cuisine, as the guests actually cook it themselves. The practical aspect of cooking together creates a warmer atmosphere; doing activities ‘together’ brings people closer and ensures the travelers feel less like they are intruding into the host’s home. Cooking together, rather than just eating, allows the guest to discover many aspects of local culture, producing more opportunities for conversation between host and guest. So what kind of local menu offerings are available…

A little while ago we told you about Japan-based startup Kitchhike, which matches travelers with local hosts [1] who prepare home cooked meals for them. It’s an intriguing and rare service, so I was pretty surprised when I heard about Tadaku, which is also based in Tokyo, also matching travelers with local hosts/cooks.

I asked Tadaku co-founders Tao Romera Martinez and Trent McBride about how their service might be different than Kitchhike [2]. They explained that the biggest difference is that Tadaku is actually about cooking local food together, rather than just eating at someone’s home as if it were a restaurant. Trent adds:

We believe the ‘cooking together’ aspect is a vital part, for a few reasons:

It’s a much better way to learn about the local cuisine, as the guests actually cook it themselves.

The practical aspect of cooking together creates a warmer atmosphere; doing activities ‘together’ brings people closer and ensures the travelers feel less like they are intruding into the host’s home.

Cooking together, rather than just eating, allows the guest to discover many aspects of local culture, producing more opportunities for conversation between host and guest.

So what kind of local menu offerings are available on Tadaku? The team informs me that they just added a host family in Nagano who proposes to cook up the local delicacy of grasshoppers and bee larvae. That’s certainly a dish that would be hard for you to find on your own [3]. Another interesting dish travelers to Japan might want to try cooking is Chanko Nabe, a meal famously eaten by sumo wrestlers.

As for its business model, Tadaku will take a 12% commission of the fee paid by the guest. And from there, Tadaku will pay the host.

Since Tadaku’s official launch back in October when they added their first hosts in Tokyo, Rome and Bangkok, they’ve had interest from hosts all over the world, in places like Morocco, Tunisia, Argentina, India, Portugal, Hungary and Spain. Trent further elaborates on their progress in these initial weeks:

We’re getting a lot of general excitement from those that hear about us, and are currently also spending a lot of time on website optimization and experimentation with different strategies regarding sign ups. […] We’re also in conversations with a number of food bloggers, administrators of food and recipe websites etc. for potential collaboration agreements.

The progress of specialized travel services like Kitchhike, Meetrip (which was acquired earlier in the month), and now Tadaku will be interesting to watch. I’m still not certain that I’d call this any sort of startup trend, but they are all interesting variants on traditional online travel services. And I hope they can find a sustainable niche among travel enthusiasts, especially those coming to Japan.

No not that local host. ↩
In addition to Tao and Trent, the third co-counder is Benjamin Sullivan. ↩
I confess, I’m not sure I’d like to try that one. ↩

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Japanese startup wants to set the standard for online learning

Junya Mori 2013.11.11

See the original article in Japanese On October 28th, my Twitter and Facebook streams suddenly got really busy. The culprit turned out to be a couple of lectures from Schoo, the Japan-based online school startup. Its mission is to build a society where people will always keep learning [1]. Based on this mission, they provide real-time online lectures on their website. The two lectures broadcasted on that particular evening were: “How trippiece raised 200 million yen” by Fumiaki Koizumi, director of trippiece “The history and the structure of venture capital that startup entrepreneurs must know” by Taiga Matsuyama, East Ventures These two lectures were a sort of follow-up of a previous lecture, “The basics of venture financing, how to raise 100 million yen”, broadcasted on Oct 17th by Satoshi Maruyama, of Venture United. If you watch these 3 lectures together, you can learn a lot about the history of venture financing, the structure and the idea of investment and venture capital. Both during and after the broadcast, I saw many social posts saying how fun or interesting it was. Schoo provides content not only on finance, but also on other startup-related subjects such as team management and how to make…

See the original article in Japanese

On October 28th, my Twitter and Facebook streams suddenly got really busy. The culprit turned out to be a couple of lectures from Schoo, the Japan-based online school startup. Its mission is to build a society where people will always keep learning [1]. Based on this mission, they provide real-time online lectures on their website.

The two lectures broadcasted on that particular evening were:

“How trippiece raised 200 million yen” by Fumiaki Koizumi, director of trippiece
“The history and the structure of venture capital that startup entrepreneurs must know” by Taiga Matsuyama, East Ventures

These two lectures were a sort of follow-up of a previous lecture, “The basics of venture financing, how to raise 100 million yen”, broadcasted on Oct 17th by Satoshi Maruyama, of Venture United. If you watch these 3 lectures together, you can learn a lot about the history of venture financing, the structure and the idea of investment and venture capital.

Both during and after the broadcast, I saw many social posts saying how fun or interesting it was.

Schoo provides content not only on finance, but also on other startup-related subjects such as team management and how to make a business plan.

I went to Schoo’s office to learn more about what’s going on with the startup. I spoke with Kenshiro Mori, the representative director of Schoo; Takayuki Nakanishi, the director responsible for content department; and Takuya Koroku, editor and content director.

Mori explained to me why they started creating content focused on venture financing, saying that his experience was his biggest motivation.

Mori raised 152 million yen from Itochu Technology Ventures, IncubateFund and ANRI in July, 2013. Back then, there were too many things beyond his comprehension. Today funds flow faster, and dynamic changes will occur when more entrepreneurs raise funding amounts of more than 100 million yen. On the other hand, there are pitfalls when raising so much money. Thinking back on his own experience, he believed communicating advice for entrepreneurs about fundraising would be helpful.

Content design based on a framework

Currently there are two subjects on schoo: startups and web design. Mori adds:

When we planned courses on these two subjects, the first thing we did was to set a solid goal. We design content based on practical goals, which reflect what the users will be able to do after they finish the course. When we designed the course for the ‘startups’ section, we set a framework. The framework was that users currently preparing to startup will be able to raise enough to end series A. Based on the framework, we created our content.

They first focused on users and where they could achieve, and then they developed the content with lecturers. With the web design course, they created content with the aim of helping total beginners be able to work as freelance web designers.

They also offer lectures focused on more practical matters in startup management. Another lecture, “How to build a great startup team”, will be presented by Yozo Kaneko, the COO of United .

Nakanishi: In many cases, after entrepreneurs raise more than 100 million yen, but the existing company structure fails to work and breaks down.

Mori: We failed that way…

Nakanishi: We present this kind of real case to participants and move on to discussion.

They create content based on their experiences. And that’s why the lectures are not abstract, but rather more practical.

Stay tuned for the second part of this interview, coming soon!

The original Japanese reads something like ‘to rid graduations from society’, so we’re taking some liberties here in order to better communicate the meaning. ↩

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Tokyo Office Tour: SpinningWorks wants to bring bookworms back to offline bookstores

Masaru Ikeda 2013.11.06

SpinningWorks is a Tokyo-based startup that has been involved in providing a variety of web services since 2010. Among its past services is Qlippy, an SDK for adding social functions to various e-book reader apps and platforms. It raised 41 million yen (approximately $535,000 at that time) from several Japanese investment firms in October of 2011. I recently visited to see Yoichi Shirakata, the founder/CEO of SpinningWorks, and asked him what they are working on these days [1]. In addition to providing the Qlippy SDK service, the company launched a new service called TakeStock almost one year ago. It collects inventory updates on books from major bookstores all across the country, and lets you know where you can buy your favorite book in your neighborhood. He explained: There are almost 14,000 bookstores in Japan. Our service lets you to check inventory updates from 1,400 bookstores, which accounts for almost 40% of all sales in online and offline bookstores. We know the majority of our userbase uses Internet Explorer, which indicates our service is being used by the average consumer rather than especially tech-savvy people. Some users are willing to buy online, but others want to compare with other items or…

SpinningWorks is a Tokyo-based startup that has been involved in providing a variety of web services since 2010. Among its past services is Qlippy, an SDK for adding social functions to various e-book reader apps and platforms. It raised 41 million yen (approximately $535,000 at that time) from several Japanese investment firms in October of 2011.

I recently visited to see Yoichi Shirakata, the founder/CEO of SpinningWorks, and asked him what they are working on these days [1].

In addition to providing the Qlippy SDK service, the company launched a new service called TakeStock almost one year ago. It collects inventory updates on books from major bookstores all across the country, and lets you know where you can buy your favorite book in your neighborhood. He explained:

There are almost 14,000 bookstores in Japan. Our service lets you to check inventory updates from 1,400 bookstores, which accounts for almost 40% of all sales in online and offline bookstores. We know the majority of our userbase uses Internet Explorer, which indicates our service is being used by the average consumer rather than especially tech-savvy people.

Some users are willing to buy online, but others want to compare with other items or have a look before buying.

When you look for a book to buy, our service helps you buy it online as well as offline. If you prefer not to wait for something to be delivered, our service lets you know where you can buy it right away at a place nearby. In this way, we can present consumers other retailers with e-commerce giants like Amazon or Rakuten in line as their options.

The company started its service focusing on books, since the market volume in Japan is said to be as much as 1.9 trillion yen (approximately $19 billion). Every single title has a unique code (ISBN), which makes the process easier to systemize than other markets such as fashion apparel. In Japan, almost all books are sold at the listed prices at almost all stores, so consumers can choose to buy solely based on their conveniences.

Shirakata revealed that the Japanese e-commerce market accounts for only 2.8% of all commercial activities here in the country, which indicates it still has much room to grow [2]. In the future, by enhancing the services beyond book distribution, he expects to help more offline businesses find potential customers, giving them a chance to buy things they can’t find online.

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Japanese startup detects social media threats to kids, warns parents

Masaru Ikeda 2013.10.29

See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based startup A’s Child (pronounced as Ace Child) recently launched a web service that aims to protect children from bullying and other threats stemming from social media interactions. It’s called Filii. The service lets you analyze your children’s posting or messaging through social media (with their approval), and it will notify you to take counter- or preventative measures when any cause for concern is detected. These days, with words like sexting creeping into mainstream conversation, social media and messaging apps are coming under greater scrutiny. But the fact is many of these undesirable issues arise not from the social media platforms, but by malicious users. The operators of these platforms are requested to deploy countermeasures, but Japanese telecommunication law prohibits operators from tapping or interfering with users’ communications. To keep a moral and legal balance, Filii wants to give Japanese parents an option to protect your children using technology. The company plans to partner with local governments, schools, crime prevention organizations, and personal security service companies like Mimamorl. Filii claims that its technology can work to help ensure the security of not only children, but also adults. For example in Korea, where the suicide…

See the original story in Japanese.

Tokyo-based startup A’s Child (pronounced as Ace Child) recently launched a web service that aims to protect children from bullying and other threats stemming from social media interactions. It’s called Filii. The service lets you analyze your children’s posting or messaging through social media (with their approval), and it will notify you to take counter- or preventative measures when any cause for concern is detected.

These days, with words like sexting creeping into mainstream conversation, social media and messaging apps are coming under greater scrutiny. But the fact is many of these undesirable issues arise not from the social media platforms, but by malicious users. The operators of these platforms are requested to deploy countermeasures, but Japanese telecommunication law prohibits operators from tapping or interfering with users’ communications.

To keep a moral and legal balance, Filii wants to give Japanese parents an option to protect your children using technology. The company plans to partner with local governments, schools, crime prevention organizations, and personal security service companies like Mimamorl.

Filii claims that its technology can work to help ensure the security of not only children, but also adults. For example in Korea, where the suicide rate is very high, data analysis company Daumsoft succeeded in developing a technology that can identify persons exhibiting suicidal behavior by analyzing their tweets or interactions on social media.

A’s Child was founded earlier this month by two engineers who previously work with a systems integration company. The startup is based out of Samurai Startup Island, an incubation space in Tokyo.

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Viibar wins OnLab demo day with crowdsourced video production solution

Open Network Lab

Masaru Ikeda 2013.10.27

See the original story in Japanese. All photos courtesy of Open Network Lab. Tokyo-based startup incubator Open Network Lab (OnLab for short) held a demo day event earlier this week, showcasing five startups from the 7th batch of its incubation program. The Best Team Award and the Special Award were presented to two startups who have shown solid growth in the last six months of their incubating period. Let’s do a quick rundown of the startups that have graduated from the program. Viibar (The Best Team Award winner) Viibar is a crowdsourcing platform focusing on video production. For enterprises or startups, you may need to produce video clips or ads to promote your products or services online. By splitting your video production process into small tasks, this platform lets you create high quality videos at affordable rates by taking advantage of crowdsourced skills. The startup can also accept orders to create YouTube TrueView video ads, providing content optimization advice and measurement of ad effectiveness so that your viewers are more likely keep watching your video through to the end. The concept of its ‘1 min videos‘ production service is similar to that of Korea’s 500videos. Locarise (The Special Award winner)…

See the original story in Japanese. All photos courtesy of Open Network Lab.

Tokyo-based startup incubator Open Network Lab (OnLab for short) held a demo day event earlier this week, showcasing five startups from the 7th batch of its incubation program.

The Best Team Award and the Special Award were presented to two startups who have shown solid growth in the last six months of their incubating period. Let’s do a quick rundown of the startups that have graduated from the program.

Viibar (The Best Team Award winner)

Viibar is a crowdsourcing platform focusing on video production. For enterprises or startups, you may need to produce video clips or ads to promote your products or services online. By splitting your video production process into small tasks, this platform lets you create high quality videos at affordable rates by taking advantage of crowdsourced skills.

The startup can also accept orders to create YouTube TrueView video ads, providing content optimization advice and measurement of ad effectiveness so that your viewers are more likely keep watching your video through to the end. The concept of its ‘1 min videos‘ production service is similar to that of Korea’s 500videos.

Locarise (The Special Award winner)

Locarise is an analytics solution for retail stores. By placing small sensors inside and around your store, the system can collect metrics such as how many people passed in front of the store and how many customers you have served.

The system’s web-based dashboard shows you these metrics, as well as other things like visit duration, and retention rate. For a business owner monitoring many store locations, you can easily stay up to date on real-time target rates for KPIs at many stores in a single interface.

Shakring

Regardless of location, culture, or language, this mobile app lets you to ask or tell other users what you’re looking at. By scanning barcodes, it also helps you find details about what you have in your hand.

When the app’s creator, Hyongchol, Kim visited a drug store here in Japan, he saw a young Indian confused about cold medicine he should buy. Since he couldn’t read Japanese characters, he hesitated to buy the medicine despite the fact that Kim told him which one it was. This experience motivated Kim to create the app, which he is preparing for iOS and Android platforms.

Style With

Style With is an e-commerce site for men, helping them coordinate their outfits. Users’ preferences are classified according to the ’taste graph’ concept, and you will receive about five different outfit proposals of outfits every month that you might like. The platform can monetize by letting a user buy any item from the outfits proposed. It targets male users may not be very bold in their fashion but want to purchase clothes that will turn some heads.

Ednity

Ednity is a vertical social network for school classes. By putting teachers, students, and their parents in a sort of loop, it will help them build a collaborative education environment. The platform gives you a dashboard to manage notifications from school and your homework, and also provides a virtual white board for hand-drawn content that can be shared between teachers and their children.

Open Network Lab is now inviting applications from startups looking to join the upcoming batch of its incubation program starting next January. The application deadline is November 8th. The incubator’s parent company, Digital Garage, will also launch a co-working space in San Francisco pretty soon, where their incubated startups will be able to establish a base.

To commemorate the launch of the facility, the company plans to host Global Pitch 2013 on November 4th, and New Context Conference 2013 in San Francisco on November 5th and 6th. That’s just before digital agency Btrax’s SF Japan Night event at Pivotal Labs on November 7th.

news

iSitter wants to crowdsource babysitters for moms in Japan

iSitter

Yukari Mitsuhashi 2013.10.25

These days, it seems like crowdsourcing is becoming an integral part of many existing online services. Major examples here in Japan would be websites like CrowdWorks and Lancers, where clients can find freelance workers. But many other companies want a piece of this seven billion yen market [1]. One such Japanese company is iSitter, a service similar to US-based Urbansitter. It launched just a few days ago, providing a crowdsourcing site that helps busy moms find qualified babysitters. The site requires babysitters to identify themselves using their Facebook credentials, which helps ensure safety for mothers and children. The company takes this precaution a step further, doing check ups on newly registered babysitters as well (checking things like their driver’s license, health-insurance, etc). Their five star review system provides objective evaluations of registered care-takers. Although iSitter is a much needed service, it might be headed down a rocky road in Japan. In this country there is not really any babysitting culture, perhaps since Japan is generally a safe place where parents can leave young children at home by themselves. But according to iSitter, the babysitting market is a 20.5 billion yen market in Japan. And it will be interesting to see…

These days, it seems like crowdsourcing is becoming an integral part of many existing online services. Major examples here in Japan would be websites like CrowdWorks and Lancers, where clients can find freelance workers. But many other companies want a piece of this seven billion yen market [1].

One such Japanese company is iSitter, a service similar to US-based Urbansitter. It launched just a few days ago, providing a crowdsourcing site that helps busy moms find qualified babysitters. The site requires babysitters to identify themselves using their Facebook credentials, which helps ensure safety for mothers and children. The company takes this precaution a step further, doing check ups on newly registered babysitters as well (checking things like their driver’s license, health-insurance, etc). Their five star review system provides objective evaluations of registered care-takers.

Although iSitter is a much needed service, it might be headed down a rocky road in Japan. In this country there is not really any babysitting culture, perhaps since Japan is generally a safe place where parents can leave young children at home by themselves.

But according to iSitter, the babysitting market is a 20.5 billion yen market in Japan. And it will be interesting to see whether or not they can succeed in grabbing some of that.

Besides the hourly wage paid to babysitters, iSitter is free to use. The company’s goal is to acquire 3,000 parents and 200 babysitters within a year. In the future it is expected to implement a paid model, with a monthly fee of a few hundred yen.

As of 2012. ↩

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